Matthew McConaughey: Finding comfort in uncomfortable roles

Matthew McConaughey shared scenes with Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Wolf of Wall Street," but it's his role in another film that could win him an Oscar when they ask for "the envelope, please..." next month. He talks about that and more with Lee Cowan:

The University of Texas has a lot of
famous alumni, but few get a reaction quite like this:

"That's what I needed to do,"
said McConaughey. "That's where Ron was. I was measuring myself and
also quietly measuring other people's reactions. And it went from, 'Oh, you're
losing weight,' to, 'Oh, man, you look really skinny,'

"And then it got to a point that
people are like, 'Oh my God, are you okay?' And that's just what I needed to be
for Ron."

It's not his
only role people are talking about. His
new HBO mini-series, "True
Detective," with Woody Harrelson, is getting attention, too.

And there there's his cameo in "The Wolf of Wall Street." McConaughey
plays the chest-thumping, cocaine-snorting mentor to Leonardo DiCaprio.

"So the chest thumping is
actually a ritual for you, right?" asked Cowan.

"It's something I do to relax
myself, to try to get my voice down low," he replied. "I'd be sitting
there, hhhmmm hmmm hmmm, just to stay in it. Stay in my zone, and keep the rhythm."

It was DiCaprio's idea to incorporate
McConaughey's rhythm into the scene.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Matthew McConaughey in "The Wolf of Wall Street."

Paramount Pictures

"The last few takes, I don't
think we spoke English to each other," he laughed."

The familiar
drawl is all Texas, where he was born and raised. He lives in Austin with his wife, Camilla
Alves, and their three children.

He thought
he'd be a lawyer,
but a few years into his stint at the University of Texas, while in his
fraternity house, he decided storytelling was more up his alley.

"I was the only fraternity guy in
film school, maybe ever at that point," McConaughey said. "Maybe
still."

He got his first shot not far from his
frat house, when he landed the part of stoner David Wooderson in "Dazed and Confused."

"That's what I love about these
high school girls, man: I get older, they stay the same age!"

Director Richard Linklater says he saw
something in McConaughey right away: "I saw a great actor, someone who
could just take a character and completely go into that character."

He put him in his very first
scene in a parking lot at the Top Notch Drive-in:

"Alright, alright, alright!"

"And boy, that night changed the
whole production," said Linklater. "From then on, I heard crew, the
grip kinda going, 'Alright, alright, alright!' It's like when the player on the
team makes a great play and the whole team goes in that direction. That's what
we did from this moment on."